Greetings from Tanzania! This is our first prayer letter of 2018. Can you believe it is 2018?!. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we arrived here full-time back in 2013. God sure has been good to us. Our Christmas service was wonderful. We had 230 of our church people attend. It was fun and relaxing to be together for a short service, celebrating our Saviour’s birth. We had our choir sing a new song, and our children’s choir sang and quoted a few verses from Luke 2. We ended the service by giving every family a bag of rice.
To kick off the new year, we decided to have an all-night activity at the church. It was fun. We had nine preacher boys preach and challenge us. We also had singing, games, and food; and, of course, we rang in the New Year with prayer. We had 150 people come for this event, and we were especially grateful this year because we had electricity. Last time we had to run the generator all night, but this year, three days prior to our all-night service, the electric company was able to provide us with electricity. There is a government hospital that is just down the street from our church that is about to open, so we were able to connect with their transformer.
On Wednesday nights I have been doing an in-depth series on the 10 Commandments. We have been going through one each week and seeing how we can apply it to our lives on a deeper level. It has been fun. We have had great interaction, and we are seeing our folks excited for the next week and taking notes. It’s the little things that can encourage us sometimes. Seeing people “get it” is very rewarding and makes us more grateful for you all who support us so we can be here.
We had our second Valentine’s Banquet here at GBC. We were privileged to have a fellow missionary come and speak to our couples. What a great challenge we received from the book of Ruth to strengthen our marriages. We had over 40 couples in attendance. Everyone dressed up in their best clothes, and we enjoyed games and food. The fellowship was sweet, and the smiles were worth it.
Please pray for our first-ever, upcoming Spring Program in April. We are looking forward to seeing new faces at the church. May the Lord use this tool to be able to reach more people.
Just so you know, GBC was able to lead over 2,200 people to the Lord and baptize over 250 in 2017. We also averaged 260 in attendance. We were able to do this through different outreach ministries (Bible Clubs, Public School Ministry, soul winning, and church). It was also through the giving and praying of people and churches like yours and, of course, through the Holy Spirit’s conviction on people and God’s drawing them to Himself.
We appreciate so much the cards and gifts that we received. Your generosity is very much noticed. We love you guys.
Your missionary friends,
Mshama, Martha, & Esther Kinyonga